Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Sunday May 28, 2006 @08:36AM
from the something-to-think-about dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Amnesty International has a new online campaign against governments which censor websites, monitor online communications, and persecute citizens who express dissent in blogs, emails, or chat-rooms. The website, Irrepressible.info contains a web-based petition (to be presented at a UN conference in November 2006) and also a downloadable web gadget which displays random excerpts of censored material on your own website."

By now most people should know what will end up happening with this "Free(dumb)Network". Governments will disallow under harsh penalties usage of such a network. They will all claim security takes precedence over privacy. The problems with this current infrastructure aren't the lack of available tools to ensure privacy (PGP, SSL, S/MIME, VPN, etc), the problem is with the people who 1) don't understand the underlying need for privacy, 2) lack of standardization in implementing these tools. How niche would it be to create a "Secure ISP" based service where everything was encrypted on the wire before it left your network? Wouldn't be all that difficult but most common people wouldn't understand the need for it if it slapped them in the face.

Outside of that, what would end up happening with a "niche provider" would be the interaction with a "non niche" provider who wasn't providing security. They overlap and that will forever be a problem. Here in the US as we all have seen, what will likely happen in one of these Free(dumb)Networks is, the gov will spew the catch phrase Osama and all things terror and knock this notion down the drain. I'm a huge privacy advocate and believe in security to the fullest, but even I feel there is no need for an all inclusive "SecureNet". The typical network transaction does not warrant the network and application overhead needed. I do know however that when I need something said securely, processed securely, transacted securely, I don't rely on any protocol, person or program. Rather I rely on myself which is the main and most fundamental point on the security food chain.

As for the notion of a petition, it will go nowhere with this crapaganda of things terror related. To an extent I agree with some portions of governments pickings when it comes to security and privacy, but I also know governments' current actions are likely to create smarter criminals. This is evident in the computer security industry where viruses are now utilizing encryption schemes to hide themselves and their actions... Imagine clusters of terrorists doing the same... So to a degree I empathize with governments... They just don't have a clue, but at the same time their actions will be their stepping blocks.

The problems with this current infrastructure aren't the lack of available tools to ensure privacy (PGP, SSL, S/MIME, VPN, etc),

How do these protect against an oppressive government?

As far as I know, Freenet is the only way to publish something, and for everyone else to view that something, without the government being able to tell who published it and who's viewing it.

2) lack of standardization in implementing these tools.

And then you complain that Freenet is too standard?

How niche would it be to create a "Secure ISP" based service where everything was encrypted on the wire before it left your network?

And then decrypted at the ISP before it leaves their network? Seriously, what does that buy you? And why couldn't the government come in and demand the ISP's records?

The point of Freenet is, unless the government comes out and says you can't do it, no one can control it. Once it's widely implemented, the ISP is literally unable to turn over records of your activity to the government.

the gov will spew the catch phrase Osama and all things terror and knock this notion down the drain.

I don't think they could. Most of the population wouldn't buy it -- we don't like wiretapping, either. All we need is enough content on the network that most people want to use it, and that could be much more successfully bootstrapped if it weren't for the performance issues -- Freenet sucks down as much bandwidth and CPU as you throw at it, and is still much slower than browsing the web over VNC on half-speed dialup.

Now, it may prevent other countries from adopting it so quickly, but imagine if the US, Canada, and Europe put so much content on Freenet that it essentially became The Internet. China would have to let it through or effectively be cutting their country off from any Western content at all.

The typical network transaction does not warrant the network and application overhead needed.

That's the point. So, when the vast majority of freenet traffic is "typical", it's that much more impossible to find the atypical.

We have all the tools we need. Check out OpenVPN http://openvpn.net/ [openvpn.net] Plus, a VPN network _does_ infact exist. It's called anoNet (which I have posted about before on this article, but is more appropriate in this thread). You can find all the details at http://anonet.org/ [anonet.org] Plus, Freenet tends to be laggy from my experience.:(

Well...I would actually like to be able to read the headers of emails I get. So will quite a few other people. Helps weed out at least some minor fraudsters out there.

Similarly, I do not see anything wrong with paying for bandwidth, services, etc on a per item or per Kb basis.

After all, let's get real. Internet is now a utility. We are reaching the point where governments are contemplating to make broadband access an essential service which is a right and Telcos are supposed to guarantee that 100% of the po

you dont seem to understand the actual situation (assuming the following situation is what you are talking about, I could be entirely wrong).

ISP's (at least here in australia) charge end users either set fee's for supposedly unlimited access at a maximum data rate, or fees based on how much they download. big wensites like google pay other isp's (or set up their own equipment) fees based on how much bandwidth is used by the website. in this setup, it should be obvious that any costs for users bandwidth sh

I have a feeling that they won't be defending anyone's "right" to post death threats online. Hypocritical or not, that's actually a good thing. They ought to be going after those who censor political speech on a large scale.

First they defined hate speech as "posting death threats online," and I did not speak up because I didn't post death threats online. Then, they defined hate speech as "racist material" and I did not speak up because I wasn't a racist. Then, they defined hate speech as "Islamophobia," and I did not speak up because I wasn't against Islam. Then, they defined hate speech as "anti-Christian material," and even though I really hated Christians, I did not speak out because I knew the consequences. Finally, th

Hey we can all play this! First they defined murder as premdeditated killing and I did not speak up because I don't plan out my killings. Then they defined murder as being really really mean to people and I didn't speak out because I hate those mean people. Then they defined murder as eating fried bananas. Moral: It shouldn't be illegal to kill people because if it is then something else might be made illegal later!

Oh wait, I've just realised, this whole line of reasoning is totally fucking stupid.

Actually, you just said a great truth.
Because of the slippery slope that you despise so much, they have recently jailed a guy in my city who shot and killed in self defence, with a legitimately owned and registered gun, during a robbery where he and his fathers were attacked.
The reasons why he was jailed are, of course, political. I'm not entering the details because they are not relevant now. But it goes to show that "this whole line of reasoning is totally fucking" APPROPRIATE.

Are you serious? So you think that because the law was incorrectly enforced in one case that murder should be legalized? Well, let's legalize robbery and rape as well then since I'm sure just as many individuals have been wrongfully imprisoned for those crimes also.

Or maybe the more rational approach would be to address what actually went wrong in that situation: incorrect interepretation/enforcement of the law. Instead of legalizing murder (do I even need to explain why this is a stupid idea?), maybe the

Uhm. The episode did not take place in America. The details are not relevant unless you are both well-versed and interested in contemporary Italian politics, which I deem less than 0.001% of/. can be. I don't know about the hero's tastes wrt food, so no comment on the banana bit. Overall, you score 0 in commeting skills and 100 in idiocy. Nice work!

We are not putting the freaking guy under trial, the judge has already done his work... Even if he were a serial kiler the point stands that saying "murder is always wrong" is completely false because there can be instances when it's OK to go on and kill. In order to make my point clearer, I made an example, but the details would have been tedious. That's why I left them out. Anyway, if you are curious, it went like this: criminal breaks into the shop using a mace to shatter the security window, proceeds to

By now, you should have realized that society at large is not ready for a "personal responsibility" framework. I have found that people will go to great lengths (in both denial and self-harm) in order to ignore the possibility of there being such a thing as responsibility for what you do.
Until this changes, they will be more than happy to sponsor censorship-happy governments. The more the gov't handles, the less responsible they will be. Then, when something bad happens, they just wish to fix it with extreme prejudice, lock it away, try to forget about it, and pass more legislation: apparently we're not forbidding enough things.
And why the hell are you a nazi anyway? Why do you support pro-nazi speech? Don't you think of the children?;)

The mere fact that a government is seeking to engineer how people think, speak and dress when it comes to Nazism is a Fascist tendency in its own right. Fascism operates under the tenant that people can't be trusted to think for themselves so the government has to regulate how they think and act for the good of the state.

The irony of rabid suppresion of Nazis is that many governments are leaning if not out right rushing to Fascism today. China, U.S., U.K., Australia, Russia and Israel are on the top of the Fascism scale in my book. Are they Nazi Germany, obviously not though China is pretty close with internal policy. Fortunately China at present seems to have no interest in aggressive warfare, a Fascist trademark, they are so busy just getting rich the old fashioned way. The U.S. has a superficially freer society though its getting less free every day, but its makes up for it on the Fascism scale with rampant militarism and advocacy of aggressive, preemptive war making.

Its my suspicion the world's governments need to suppress Nazi sympathizers because they want to return to Fascism as the world's dominant form of government, but to do that they need to erase the association between Fascism and the extreme turn it took in the 1930's and 1940's. If they outlaw and suppress the most notorious and superficial symbols of Fascism then OBVIOUSLY they must not be Fascist and Fascism must not exist today. If you make the false assertion that to be a Fascist you must wear a Swastika, and you outlaw the Swastika so no one wears them, then it follows there must not be any Fascists, right? It is an interesting con game.

The world's governments and media are in complete denial that Fascism could ever flourish again when in fact it is flourishing, its just no one will speak the name and on the Internet Godwin's law will be invoked, Godwin's law being the ultimate weapon to prevent anyone calling a spade a spade on the Internet.

The only time you hear anyone being called Fascist lately, is the Bush administration seems to have settled on Islamo-Fascist as their new buzz word since they've completely worn out the 'T' and 'R' keys on their keyboards using the word "Terrorist" a hundred times in EVERY speech and press release for the last 5 years, to refer to EVERYONE who is not "with them" in the "either you are with us or you are against us" equation. I would say there is another pretty heavy dose of smoke screen in their recent use of Fascist in describing their enemy. If there enemy is Fascist then that MUST mean that they are not, though in fact they are at least leaning that way.

Israel is another interesting case study. It was a state born out of the crucible of Fascism, but they treat Palestinians as sub human and with such contempt that it must ring a bell with Jews who lived in Europe in the 1930's. Just last week Israel's Supreme court affirmed a law effectively banning a Palestinian from marrying an Israeli citizen, a law so much like the Nazi prohibition of intermarriage with Jews. The law is not exactly predicated on race since its real motive is to prevent Palestinians from ever becoming the majority withing Israel. You see Palestinian are reproducing at a higher rate than Israel's Jews, especially if you count the occupied territories. so there is an imminent danger they will become the majority. Since Israel wants to maintain the facade it is a representative democracy it must do everything in its power to prevent Palestinians from becoming the majority, because when they are either Jews surrender power at the polls or for all practical purposes Israel is an apartheid state, which is pretty much already is, with a minority controlling power through non Democratic means and ethnic "cleansing". This is a key motivator from the withdrawl from Gaza. Through withdrawl Israel can claim that all the Palestinians there are no longer a part of Israel while Israel still maintains a choke hold on every aspect of their day to day lives.

"What that law does state is that Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens would not be automatically granted Israeli citizenship."And it also means the Palestinian spouse can't move to Israel to live together as man and wife. I don't think an Israeli citizen can easily move to the West Bank to live with their spouse either. The Israeli military restricts who can move to the West bank, apparently favoring to only allow Jews to move their to create "illegal" settlements secretly blessed by the Israeli gover

I have a feeling that they won't be defending anyone's "right" to (post death threats, oppose the war, blaspheme, defame democracy, aid the terrorists) online. Hypocritical or not, that's actually a good thing. They ought to be going after those who censor political speech on a large scale.

As the other guy said, it depends where you live. Denying the holocaust can land you a jail sentence in many western European countries, and the European Court of Human Rights has upheld such convictions despite the free speech provisions found in Article 10. This issue goes far beyond violent neo-Nazis. Certain historical theories, however stupid or silly they may be, are illegal to speak of. With discussion of certain events essentially banned, who knows whether any legitimate theories are being suppressed? It can also be quite dangerous to criticize Jewish religion or Jewish culture. Don't get me wrong, I think Jews catch way too much flak when compared to Christians, but that doesn't mean that there aren't perfectly valid reasons to attack their beliefs and their customs--e.g., I think that circumcision performed on any child not old enough to decide for himself is barbaric (other than for medical reasons. Long-term medical reasons such as very slightly lower STD transmission and penile cancer rates are not not valid because by the time he's old enough to worry about such things, he's old enough to make the decision himself.), the foundation of Israel was one of the all-time stupidest fucking ideas ever conceived and western nations should not support their holy war (even if they weren't the ones who started it), their dietary restrictions are dumb, their culture is too male-centric, power-centric and money-centric, and (like most other Abrahamic religions) observant Jews tend to be arrogant, ignorant, deluded, and bigoted.

I can say all of that without thinking twice because the one freedom America hasn't completely sold out is the freedom to criticize or insult whomever you wish. If I were in France (or Germany or Switzerland or Poland or Belgium or Austria), I would think very long and hard before I said anything like that in public. If it was a very public statement, such as a speech or academic paper, likely I'd have to consult a lawyer first and he'd probably tell me to tone down my language.

Simply put, that's fucked up... and it's doubly fucked up for an allegedly free western democratic nation. The USA certainly has its share of freedom-stomping, un-democratic laws on the books, but I certainly do hope Amnesty International doesn't neglect to go after oppressive and unproductive "hate crime" laws in western Europe.

A non-government lobbyist organization has no obligation to being fair, just to effective. Being effective means taking up the most popular cases. If they start defending the right to publish pedophile fantasies, to take a non-political example, that will be used against them and make the entire campaign inefficient.

A casual look at their web site makes it look like they're more concerned about governments that engage in hate speech than about governments who censor it. For example, part of the runup to the Yugoslav civil war was official propaganda pandering to and inflaming ethnic hatred. If you have a strong stomach, look up what Zimbabwe's government is saying about gay people.

It sounds like you're lobbying for the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded movie house. Do you think that if the hate speech propagated by the radio personalities in Rwanda had been halted there would still have been a massacre of 800,000 people?

Even here in the U.S. where we have pretty liberal laws regarding free speech it is still recognized that you are not allowed to incite people to violence. That inciting to violence is what AI opposes.

It sounds like you're lobbying for the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded movie house.
Ah, that old argument. I'm lobbying that people be treated as adults, instead of as children who constantly need to be looked after by Big Brother so that they do not go astray.

Do you think that if the hate speech propagated by the radio personalities in Rwanda had been halted there would still have been a massacre of 800,000 people? [If we don't censor speech, bad things will happen.]
But what if neo-Nazis use the p

No. In other words speech should be free until it incites violence against others. Perhaps that is a difficult concept to grasp as so many here have failed to understand that. Would you defend my right to try to convince people that you should be dragged into the street and shot?

No. In other words speech should be free until it incites violence against others. Perhaps that is a difficult concept to grasp as so many here have failed to understand that.
Good job. You've just outlawed verbal support for the colonials that wanted to rebel against the British Crown (ever heard of the American revolution?) including the founding fathers. You've just outlawed every other revolutionary movement (including anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and pro-democratic movements) as well. You've outlawed verbal support for communism, which depends on the proles rising up and violently beating the crap out of "the rich." You've also outlawed verbal support for socialism, which is dependent upon involuntary taxation, which is possible only when violence can be used to coerce people to pay their taxes (e.g. if you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will come to your house, and take you to jail; if you resist, they'll beat the crap out of you). Just the other day, there was a Slashdot thread where people were seriously discussing violently overthrowing the American government; I guess Slashdot can be banned now as well, and all those people can go strait to jail. We can go on, and on.

Would you defend my right to try to convince people that you should be dragged into the street and shot?
I'd give you a microphone so that the whole world can be exposed to your "extraordinary" logic.

Just the other day, there was a Slashdot thread where people were seriously discussing violently overthrowing the American government; I guess Slashdot can be banned now as well, and all those people can go strait to jail.

I didn't see that discussion. It's probably not as you described, but discussing the violent overthrow of the government is not the same as inciting.

And no, I didn't outlaw verbal support for socialism, communism or even capitalism (which is the most violent of all). I merely stated

I didn't see that discussion. It's probably not as you described,Here [slashdot.org] you go. I suggest that you read it at -1 for full effect (as I do due to not wanting others to censor my information for me). If you read slowly, you can start here. [slashdot.org] Please come back and tell me how it is not as I described.

discussing the violent overthrow of the government is not the same as inciting.
Personally, I felt quite incited. Perhaps in the future, you could support your assertions with arguments (and no, saying "no it

There is a fundamental difference between banning speech which directly incites violence and banning speech because it is distasteful. You can have a perfectly dystopian society where every person lives in total slavery and still claim to support the common good. The whole point of protection freedom of speech is to protect unpopular speech--popular speech, after all, doesn't need as much protection. A just government does not abrogate individual rights in the favor of some nebulous social good. I'm not cla

"Amnesty International has a new online campaign against governments which censor websites, monitor online communications, and persecute citizens who express dissent in blogs, emails, or chat-rooms."

Emphasis mine. Every government does that, and it's unlikely that any petition will end that. Why? Because not all of that monitoring is done with 'Evil Intent'. I'm not going to complain because the police are watching IRC rooms as part of operation Avalanche or whatever. I'm not going to complain when they shut down some idiots website telling someone to go poison the water supply.

This may not be a popular view with the yanks, but not all censorship or eavesdropping is inherently bad. The problem is making sure there are controls in place, so that that power can't be abused. The other problem is trust.

Every government does that, and it's unlikely that any petition will end that.
For at least one government, however, it is actually illegal to censor websites due to their constitution. If you have any proof of them doing so, you can sue them.

This may not be a popular view with the yanks, but not all censorship or eavesdropping is inherently bad. The problem is making sure there are controls in place, so that that power can't be abused. The other problem is trust.
Great, another "enlightened" "nuance

This may not be a popular view with the yanks, but not all censorship or eavesdropping is inherently bad. The problem is making sure there are controls in place, so that that power can't be abused. The other problem is trust.

Maybe as a Yank, I have problems with eavesdropping.

For one... It is just inconsiderate. Secondly, it implies guilt. Lastly, it gives government too much power.

I'd rather have an ineffective and idiotic government than one that is strong and all knowing.

Censorship is not a liberal vs. conservative thing. It's a authoritarian vs. libertarian (or classical liberal) thing. It's also a big government vs. small government thing (not that you, as an alleged "conservative" would know anything about that).

Thank you for providing an example of doublethink. Now go back to 1984 please.

If the government wants to censor child pornogrophy, terrorist websites, and related things, it's fine with me.

So tell me who gets to define "child pornogrophy [sic]" and "terrorist websites" for the purposes of this censorship that is fine with you. Is Slashdot a terrorist website because of all the free thinking liberals that post here?

You're making the assumption that we who don't believe in Internet censorship all believe there should be child porn on the web. Not true at all.

Child pornography is a crime. It is illegal in every industrialized society that I know of, and shutting down these websites is merely an extension of the enforcement of said laws. Similarly, a website clearly made to recruit terrorists is in violation of International Law. Again, shutting down this website is merely enforcing a law already in place. No one sane is going to complain when a website for black market goods is shut down.

But when they shut down a website that merely criticizes a government, posts unpoplar opinions, or some other legal content, that is when a problem arises.

P.S. I hate to respond to my own topic, but I needed to add, as the poster above me stated, How do we define said websites? Suppose someone takes a picture of their newborn baby which is, naturally, naked? Is that child porn? What about tasteful nudes of children, or children from a country where nudity isn't an issue at all? Is this porn? What about a website that says "I disagree with Al Qaeda's methods, but I do think they have a legitimate reason to be angry?" Is this a terrorist sponsoring site?

Child porn used to be legal in Japan, before the entire Western powerhouse, led by the self-proclaimed "moral" leader of the world, the land of the free, stepped in and more or less forced the Western human rights onto the Japanese.Before anyone wrongly believes I am in favor of child porn (which I am not), I would like to point out that what is considered child porn varies from nation to nation. Typical limits are 18 in the US and the Western world, and 14 in China. In my native Sweden, it used to be a mat

Thank you for the reasonible response. The other responses have not been so friendly... (This is what happens when I forget to add "IANAL")At first I did fall victim to the rationalization that Child porn is easily defined, which it is not. I have seen lolita manga in Japan, and it is often debated if it should be counted as child porn. (It's clearly sexual in nature against people far below most age-of-consent laws in just about every country I know. Though on the other hand, it's also entirely fictional (

"As long as there are controls to make sure they don't take it too far..."

Great idea. And let's keep the government doing the censoring in charge of the controls as well. While we're at it, make the Administrative branch responsible for pushing these laws and appointing the Legislative gatekeepers who determine if it's constitutional. It's worked so damn well up to now, that is once those gatekeepers decide if it's in the Admin's powers to spy on any American citizen they want, whenever they want without o

While we're at it, make the Administrative branch responsible for pushing these laws and appointing the Legislative gatekeepers who determine if it's constitutional.
Let me introduce you to the British-inspired parliamentary system in the liberal utopia of Canada (similar to other Commonwealth countries, but Canada is the Commonwealth country idealized most by a lot of Americans so I shall focus upon it), where the cabinet (Executive branch) is made up of the party which won the largest number of votes (ev

Well, there is a certain amount of trust involved of course. We can't know about every classified mission or program, but we have to trust our elected officials to act in our best interest. If you don't think they are, elect someone else. However, if things start going overboard, it will leak out. The media, word of mouth, whatever. If it was major, it would become an election issue. Censorship is needed to a point. We have it already. Really, I think we have more to worry about with the media and s

I must say, I admire their motives, copying censored content all over the web to make it effectively impossible to censor. But their implementation is totally flawed; From the site:
"If you have a website, myspace page or blog, help us spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from our database directly onto your site."

.. but then they invite you to include a javascript file from a central server - what happens when that server gets blocked by a censoring country? All the copies go offline. Great, amnesty, really great. The cynic in me just wants to say that all amnesty want is to have people "spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by driving more people to our website, not by publishing censored material"...

The purpose of this website is to raise awareness about internet censorship and get people to act upon it. Adding the javascript to your website is all about directing people to Amnesty's for more information. Amnesty is not trying to hide that fact. I don't think that's cynical at all.

... if an organisation like Amnesty is getting involved in this way then internet censorship is a real threat that we should all be concerned with.Amnesty really is the hardcore of moral activism.From blood diamonds to the arms trade, from violence against women to the death penalty, and not forgetting the letter writing campaigns, Amnesty doesn't concern itself with minor issues like Microsoft vs Linux or Google taking over the world.I think I might actualy do something to contribute this time...

Dunno about China but Iranian gov't does not need nukes to protect itself against human rights violation accusations. Iran has OIL!
We (Iranians) have beed silenced long before Iran started its nuke program

In China, it's state security and public stability. In the EU it's anti-racism, who can oppose that? And in the United States it's nothing short of making America safe for democracy through "campaign finance reform." What kind of commie bastard opposes public safety, supports racism and is in favor of letting others (special interests) run our government?

The kind of commie bastard who wrote in my country's constitution that it's forbidden to be or simply to promote fascism.
The kind of commie bastard who is so against racism that he has anti-white laws passed. But hey that's not racism because I'm white and I'm supposed to suck it up and die.
That kind. Satisfied, you commie bastard?

Oh thank god. Amnesty International involved! Great, now the anti-censorship lobby will have childish name-calling, double standards on freedom of speech, and glossy leaflets on their side. How I have waited for this day.

I'm a supporter of the anti-censorship side of this debate, but having an organisation that believes in censorship of opinions they dislike really means little. I know this is going to stir people up, but consider this quote (from Wikipedia);

You forgot to reference your quote which happens to be an opinion, not a fact. Whether or not you or I agree with it, it does seem to be a reasonable opinion, but it would help to know whose it is.

Whether or not you like AI and it's methods, they do attract the attention of quite a few people. It helps to have them on our side of this issue. If only/. type people were concerned about censorship, we wouldn't stand a chance.

I am not going to sign this petition. I don't want governments to force more regulations on privately owned telecoms. And the LAST, the very last thing I want to see, is an "international government" doing anything except ceasing to exist. Not proposing treaties, not controlling guns, not levying international taxes, not taking 50 fucking billion dollars a year from US Taxpayers and then attempting to claim control over our nation.

During the last UN conference on the internet, held in Tunisia, Robert Mugabe, dictator of Zimbabwe, got up and said, "There is too much freedom of speech on the internet" and received huge applause from the assembled thugs and potentates.

John Bolton: There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that's the United States. When it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along. The United States makes the U.N. work when it wants to work, and that is exactly the way it should be, because the only question, the only question for the United States is what's in our national interest. And if you don't like that, I'm sorry, but that

I think they were being semantic. East Germany (the region that is) has more problems with rascist attacks than the West German territories. Even though they are one state now, they still have quite a difference socially and economically.

Even though they are one state now, they still have quite a difference socially and economically.

Yes indeed, but there's no such thing as the "GDR" anymore, so semantically, it is plain wrong to list it. By your reasoning, shouldn't they list Switzerland three times, once for each language spoken there?

They just used a ~20 year old list of countries in the "Sign this pledge" form, that's it.

Could you explain/elaborate on that? Are you talking about Amnesty International? Amnesty International is all about the abolition of torture and the promotion of human rights. AI has no ability or desire to deny distribution of medicine to anyone. AI has always maintained a politics neutral standpoint with regard to torture.

Goals of Amnesty (from the wikipedia entry):

Free all Prisoners of Conscience (a "POC" is a person imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their beliefs, which differs somewhat from the typical use of the term political prisoner).

Ensure fair and prompt trials.

Abolish all forms of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, including the use of the death penalty.

End state-sanctioned terrorism, killings, and disappearances.

Assist political asylum-seekers.

End all forms of violence against women

Co-operate with organizations that seek to put an end to human rights abuses.

Raise awareness about human rights abuses around the world.

Should really clean house before going abroad.

Not really sure what you mean by this. Did you miss the "international" in Amnesty International?

That's fucking bullshit. The only reason you think that is because domestic news sources give it more publicity when it condemns the US for "War on Terror" tactics, rather than when it does something boring like talking about massacres in South America or the Darfur conflict.

Have you even looked at the Amnesty International website? Here let me show you a quote from their 2006 annual report that describes, "...widespread rape and killings continued - most shockingly in Darfur - against a background of poverty and disease." Source: http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/globaloverview-e ng [amnesty.org]

Yes, the website does go on to criticize the US for one full sentence, and it also makes damn sure that China's rural policies, torture by Middle-Eastern governments, and incredibly poverty in Africa are mentioned as well.

Also, do you know WHY America gets criticzed for even (relatively, compared to the Darfur genocide) slips in human rights records? This is because Americans - me included - consider their country to be a role model for the rest of the world. We obviously aren't as bad as China when it comes to censorship or Syria when it comes to torture, but why are we even comparing ourselves to that? Does it really feel that good to say, "well, at least we aren't as bad as the Darfur Janjaweed militia?" We hold ourselves to a higher moral standard, and I see nothing wrong when international human rights organizations call us out when we lapse from that standard. If we consider ourselves a symbol of freedom and democracy in the world, we better be able to take flak when we deviate in any way from those principles.

Also, do you know WHY America gets criticzed for even (relatively, compared to the Darfur genocide) slips in human rights records?

Because AI is a biased organization that lives and breathes anti-Americanism?

Check out their annual report - it begins with a letter from Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan. The letter opens with the events of August 19, 2003, when the United Nations envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed in an attack on United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Khan wonders wh

I can't believe this. Amnesty, a major human right organisation with lots of members, money and influence takes up internet freedom as a campaining topic and what do slashdotters do? Moan, complain and try to rip jokes out of it.

Believe me, Amnesty has been able to change pretty many things in this world, and for better. Now they are taking up the case of Shi Tao, who got 10 years in China for advancing freedom. Now sign the damn petition, it takes a freaking 10 seconds! Would be great to have 100.000 names on it. Slashdotters could and should help.

I am interested in seeing what will happen in November. But for the time being there is a faster solution. anoNet is a VPN network which operates just like the Internet but without the influence of the government. All communications are encrypted and uncensored. People are free to say whatever they want to without fear of persecution. We use the 1.0.0.0/8 IP range, so it is impossible to geographically identify a user based on their IP. It is 100% anonymous. Interested? Visit http://anonet.org/ [anonet.org] for details.

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for posting or sharing information. The internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments, with the help of some of the world's biggest IT companies, are cracking down on freedom of expression. Join the irrepressible.info [slashdot.org] cam

Feel free to call me blind, but all I see in the middle of their homepage [amnesty.org] is a purple box talking about the state of the world's human rights. And searching on their page for the phrase "Search engines restricted." [from your quote of them] doesn't return any results.

If you could give us the URL where you saw that, I (along with many others) would greatly appreciate it!

This campaign is out of Amnesty's UK branch. If you visit www.amnesty.org.uk, you'll see the Irrepresible campaign highly featured. Each country (indeed each Local) Amnesty is free to start campaigns. As AI was founded in the UK, it is hardly surprising that the UK AI is the biggest and most active.

And perhaps the AI Worldwide webmaster is based in the US and therefore on a long weekend? Occams Razor?

First, they came for Fark, and I said nothing because I wasn't a Fark-er.
Then, they came for SomethingAwful, and I said nothing because I wasn't a goon.
Then they came for Gamespot, and I said nothing because I wasn't a Gamespotter.
And at last they came for/. and there was no one left to help me.